On removing a portion of the dome and bringing the interior of the structure into view, we find little of the architectural regularity so conspicuous in the combs of a common bee-hive: instead of this symmetry, there are only a few egg-shaped, dark-coloured cells, placed somewhat irregularly, but approaching more to the horizontal than to the vertical position, and connected together with small amorphous[T] columns of brown wax. Sometimes there are two or three of these oval cells placed one above another, without anything to unite them. These cells are not, however, the workmanship of the old bees, but of their young grubs, who spin them when they are about to change into nymphs. But, from these cases, when they are spun, the enclosed insects have no means of escaping, and they depend for their liberation on the old bees gnawing off the covering, as is done also by ants in the same circumstances. The instinct with which they know the precise time when it is proper to do this is truly wonderful. It is no less so, that these cocoons are by no means useless when thus untenanted, for they subsequently serve for honey-pots, and are indeed the only store-cells in the nest. For this purpose the edge of the cell is repaired and strengthened with a ring of wax. [Illustration: Breeding-Cells.] The true breeding-cells are contained in several amorphous masses of brown-coloured wax, varying in dimensions, but of a somewhat flat and globular shape. On opening any of these, a number of eggs or grubs are found, on whose account the mother bee has collected the masses of wax, which also contain a supply of pollen moistened with honey, for their subsistence. The number of eggs or grubs found in one spheroid of wax varies from three to thirty, and the bees in a whole nest seldom exceed sixty. There are three sizes of bees, of which the females are the largest; but neither these nor the males are, as in the case of the hive-bee, exempt from labour, the females, indeed, always found the nests, since they alone survive the winter, all the rest perishing with cold. In each nest, also, are several females, that live in harmony together. [Illustration: Interior views of Carder-Bee's Nest.] The carder-bees may be easily distinguished from their congeners (of the same genus), by being not unlike the colour of the withered moss with which they build their nests, having the fore part of their back a dull orange, and hinder part ringed with different shades of greyish yellow. They are not so large as the common humble-bee (_Bombus terrestris_, Latr.), but rather shorter and thicker in the body than the common hive-bee (_Apis mellifica_). Lapidary-Bees.